The uptight ThinkPad image has been taken in a relatively bold new direction with the Edge line. The Lenovo ThinkPad Edge is a budget business laptop for those who want a machine that can do double duty as a personal gadget. Using AMD or Intel ultra-low-voltage processors, the laptops in the Edge line have added gloss and silver touches, and skip the optical drive -- a risky move for a 13.3-inch laptop. They even come in red versions.
The Edge has a low starting price of about £500, although that's with an AMD processor. Intel configurations of the Edge start at around £700, which is what our review version costs, with 4GB of RAM, a Core 2 Duo SU7300 CPU and a 320GB hard drive.
Missing optical drive
The Edge has no optical drive, which might annoy some people. On the other hand, its design is compact and clean. Its battery protrudes only slightly from the laptop's underside. With a lid covered in glossy black plastic and fairly cheap-looking silvery edges, our Edge review sample has an appearance much closer to a Lenovo IdeaPad than a ThinkPad.
The overly flat and slick lid is too much for our tastes, and the over-abundance of matte plastic surrounding the 13.3-inch LED-backlit screen gives the machine a somewhat budget appearance -- but the Edge is a budget machine, so we can forgive this. More impressive is the Edge's newly designed raised keyboard -- a replacement to the venerable ThinkPad tapered keyboard. The slightly concave keys do a good job of mimicking the feel of a traditional Lenovo keyboard and prevent the slipping that can occur on some raised keyboards.
The larger multi-touch touchpad also feels very comfortable, along with the ample, smooth, matte-surfaced palm rest. Those who loved the old trackpoint nubbin can rest assured that it's been retained. The Edge's entire lower half, including the keyboard, touchpad and palm rest, constitutes our favourite part of this machine. It might be the most comfortable raised keyboard we've ever used, and the large touchpad is excellent.
The 1,366x768-pixel screen is as bright and clear as those of other ThinkPad laptops. The system's sound, however, is slightly soft. The Edge is designed as a business thin-and-light laptop, but the embedded speakers aren't ideal for media playback.
With three USB ports, an HDMI port, a VGA socket and a memory-card reader, the Edge's connections are fairly standard. Although the Edge has an ultra-low-voltage processor, it's neither thin nor light enough to merit dropping the DVD/CD burner. We wish it had either been included or the Edge made even slimmer. It seems that many people still desire optical drives in larger laptops, and the omission here simply doesn't seem necessary.
Typical ULV performance
The Edge, in its lower-cost iteration, comes with a dual-core 1.6GHz AMD Turion Neo X2 L625 CPU. The Intel model uses a 1.3GHz Core 2 Duo SU7300 processor. All run Windows 7 Professional as opposed to the more common Home Premium. Our Intel configuration responded snappily and performed on a similar level to other machines with the same CPU in anecdotal usage: great for everyday work and decent for media consumption, but not ideal for any sort of gaming or video editing.
The Edge's included six-cell battery lasted for 5 hours and 20 minutes when subjected to our benchmark tests. That's what we'd expect from a dual-core ULV laptop delivering continuous video playback. It's a good showing, and the battery life should exceed that under lower-intensity work conditions and if you adjust the power settings.
Conclusion
At the lower end of the range, the Lenovo ThinkPad Edge could represent great value for
someone looking for a thin laptop with business software built in. But,
when the price starts rising, you might find yourself a better deal
elsewhere.
Additional editing by Charles Kloet
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bigxr 4 October 2011
Good: great keyboard for ham fisted typing, lenovo features, great spec.
Bad: build quality, rattly keyboard.
Comment: OK, so you are thinking of buying a Lenovo Thinkpad edge are you? First question I'd have to ask is have you ever owned an IBM thinkpad? If you have, and you're expecting something along the lines of those bullet and bomb-proof solid titanium framed workhorses, then you'd better start saving up some more dosh and wait until you can afford a "T" type Lenovo thinkpad.
I have the old T43 IBM, and after trying out a few HP's, Fujitsu's, Acers etc I decided they were just too plasticky, gimmicky and bendy. For me it has just got to be lenovo.
Unfortunately I went in head first without doing enough research, and ended up buying the Thinkpad edge 15" with the i3 processor, 4 gig of ram W7 pro 64 bit and a 500 gig hdd. The price was surprisingly competetive considering the spec, so I added it to basket and took a chance.
I went for the thinkpad name because I figured there was other monikers that could best describe the cheaper Lenovo stuff,(ideapad etc.) and surely the thinkpad name should be kept for the solid workhorse business devices right?
Aparently not.
My first criticism is with the build quality.
There is no comparison between the edge and the old T types, and i'm not trying to compare them directly, but lenovo has used the thinkpad name, so i don't think pointing out some of the more glaring weaknesses is out of order.
The egde hasn't got the solid feel of the old bricks, mainly due to the lack of a solid metal frame, and there's several annoying traits that are purely down to the cheap build quality and nothing else. These are not a function of cheaper materials either, but are faults of design, manufacture and attention to detail which could easily be overcome without necessarily increasing the cost.
The keyboard flexes at the right side. this wouldn't be a major issue if it was just a little bit flexy, i'm not that picky, but this keyboard feels like its just supported by the "Q" and the "Z". The enter key rattles annoyingly everytime its pressed like a loose domino, as does the P, O, L, :, ?, etc. In short when your typing there is a reluctance to use the right side of the keyboard because of this rattle, and the more you're aware of it the worse it gets. If they could have just put some nylon standoffs under the right side of the keyboard it would have been a fantastic buy. I've even heard of someone stuffing blue-tac under the keyboard it to stop the rattle - you simply shouldn't have to do this with a brand new Lenovo Thinkpad, regardless whether it's an edge or not.
There are other build quality issues, but they could all be put up with if it wasn't for this annoying "clack clack" evrytine you pressed one of the right side buttons.
For instance:
I don't like the power connector coming out of the side. It makes the laptop which is already 2" wider than my old T43, take up yet another 2" of desk space to accommodate the power connector. It's almost like having the CD drawer permanently open.
The rubber bumpers that are meant to stop the screen from clashing with the keyboard when its closed aren't quite big enough. The red trackpad touches the screen, and after just 3 weeks there is a distinct mark on the screen. My laptops travel a fair bit with me, and I can see this causing a serious screen scuffing. Also there are marks on the screen frame edge where its touched as well. Specifying 2mm bigger bumpers would have solved all this.
Others have mentioned that there isn't a catch to hold the screen closed, but I have faith in the mechanism and I can't see it being much of an issue.
The cover is a sort of matt black, which shows up glossy fingerprint marks, making you want to clean it all the time. (Idon't think I ever cleaned my T43). They do a red one which may be a bit more mark resiliant.
However: there are things that I love about this laptop, and as I cant send it back unless it fails, I am going to grasp onto these good points like a tramp coveting the last dregs of cheap wine on a cold winters night.
Firstly I have to mention the keyboard again.
The keyboard is by far the best I have ever typed on. Even better than the old IBM one's. I am as ham fisted as it gets on a keyboard, and usually spend as much time undo-ing the erroneous entries as I do typing the words in the first place. Not any more! this keyboard is uncanny. I have gone from hitting a wrong or double key about every two words, to almost perfect accuracy! The feel of the keys, the weight, the spacing, the size, its orgasmic! I cannot heap enough praise on the little genius who invented this keyboard. (Its a shame they used the village idiot to mount it though!). My only criticism of the keyboard itself is the use of a tiny delete button. Why use a 1/3 size delete button when they're usually double size? Baffling, but put uppable.
The specification is superb for the money. I cannot see this being outdated by software during it's lifetime. I think that the operating system is actually better than my old favorite XP pro. I never thought I'd say that as XP pro was and still is an extremely robust and user friendly OS, but i'll take my hat off to micosoft, W7 pro is pretty good, even before I've got fully used to it.
So overall what's the verdict?
If I had to make the decision again, in all honesty I'd wait until I could fork out the extra and buy a T series. But now that I've got it I have to admit that there are far, far worse laptops out there with better so called reviews for similar money or more.
Irfaan Khares 28 April 2011
Good: Excellent Design, keyboard , good size, powerful and light weight. upgradable to 8 gig memory. camera and mic etc
Bad: no dvd drive but can always hook up an external, closing the screen feels a bit like a brick. fragile in that sense.
Comment: I just bought this a week back and i must say i am quite impressed. I was debating between the 15 inch and 13 inch.. i went for the 13 and im glad. Lenovo got this upgraded for me to 8g memory with an i3 processor 64 bit. works like super effiecient. light weight. has everything i require. i would recomend this for a business laptop
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